Friday Friday

(Just in case you weren't sure what day of the week it is...)

My original plan for this post was a look at two mobile apps for finding out just what's in your favorite anything. But I quickly realized that I was biting off more than I could chew, and some other things came up, and my Blogger mobile app was being a jerk, so I'm scrapping that plan. We'll look at the apps next week after I've had more time to really kick the tires.

So for today we'll look at some required reading. That's right, required. As in, you MUST read these two articles.

Go ahead, I'll wait for you.

First, this piece over at EnvironmentalHealthNews.org, "In the Public Eye: Mascara Exempt from UN Mercury Treaty,"

and then this op-ed from Thursday's New York Times, "This is Your Brain on Toxins."

All done? Great, let's discuss.

At the heart of the debate over mascara are preservatives like thimerosal. They're mercury-based and extend the shelf life of mascara products to up to 5 years. Thimerosal may sound familiar to those of you who wear contacts (it's a common ingredient in soft lens solutions) and to anyone who's read anything about vaccines and autism.

While I don't like the idea of applying mercury-based anything directly to my eyes, the part of this article that really stood out to me was this paragraph:

"The FDA does not require ingredients that comprise less than 1 percent of a cosmetic product to be divulged on the label, so a lot more products may have thimerosal and consumers would never know, said Kristin Adams, chief executive officer of Afterglow Cosmetics, a natural and organic cosmetic company."

Whoa. If that's true, or even partially true, it means that ingredient disclosure isn't nearly as transparent as it needs to be. This does nothing for my trust issues.

The op-ed over at NYTimes.com helps a little. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof is calling out chemical manufacturers to not wait until the sh*t hits the fan and change their products now, for the greater benefit of today's generations. 

"So what are the lessons from the human catastrophe of lead poisoning over so many decades? To me, today's version of the lead industry is the chemical industry -- companies like Exxon Mobil, DuPont, BASF and Dow Chemical -- over the years churning out endocrine-disruptor chemicals that mimic the body's hormones. Endocrine disruptors are found in everything from plastics to pesticides, toys to cosmetics, and there are growing concerns about their safety."

Naming names, I love it. Kristof also calls out his fellow members of the press to not stand by, blithely observing. He's calling for action, real ACTION, from industry, from media, and from consumers. Somebody give this guy a godd@mn medal.

That's Friday here at SMACK! Hope you have a great, lower-chemical weekend!!!

-- Jazzy